


more courage to live

by RowanStar



Category: Lost in Translation (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Crying, Darkfic, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jaewon is a merman, M/M, Unrequited Love, Whump, a lot of it, i am so so sorry baby, ish?, kind of, kind of self harm, you did not deserve this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:07:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28138173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowanStar/pseuds/RowanStar
Summary: If you could spend your life being immortal with your lover, would you? If your lover was the reason you were immortal? You shouldn't. There's too much to lose, and you can't fix something so broken.Or:Jaewon wishes he were anyone else. Scandals are fine, being hated is okay....as long as it's nothim.If only he were someone else, then maybe he wouldn't be staring dead-eyed at the sky knowing with his dying breath that he has lost all chances at love.
Relationships: Ahn Jaewon | Wyld & Kang Dongho | D.Min & Kim Daehyun & Lee Minsoo, Ahn Jaewon | Wyld/Kim Daehyun
Comments: 10
Kudos: 13
Collections: Lost in Translation Fic Discord Secret Santa





	more courage to live

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hobbes_essay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbes_essay/gifts).



> hi tang this was so sad and i didn't mean for it to be  
> i cried writing it  
> i'm sorry  
> <3 love you  
> happy holidays hsjdfjhsdf

There is a grain of truth to every myth. Wishing upon a star, finding a four-leaf clover, et cetera. There always has been.  
  
Every single creature you can think of has a place in the world. From kitsunes to giants to fairies, everything has existed long before, and will continue to do so. At least, they would have.  
  
Like usual, humans decided to show their.... _appreciation_ for gifts that were not theirs to possess.  
  
They killed, ravaged, stole, and committed atrocities out of petty jealousy. They were the only creatures who had nothing, so they destroyed whatever had something they didn't. Petty, fickle little bastards, they are. The Mer were the only ones to survive the years of war, their undersea caves providing them enough shelter to get by.  
  
And then, one of them made a mistake. They would all rue that day forever.  
  
Having ruined everything else they put their touch to, the humans found the existence of the Mer when a poor maiden fell in love with one of them, leaping into the sea to join her love. Her last note detailed how the Mer had saved her life when she was attacked, and then the secret escaped of what the Mer were good for without any of them being the wiser. The next Mer to appear anywhere near land, shedding his fins as quickly as he could, was promptly greeted with a harpoon to the chest and no glimpse of his home as they dragged his body away.  
  
There were good humans, yes, but those were few and far between. As soon as more people found out the love of a Mer would keep you immortal, it was another war for who could earn their favor. As if they would be so quick to hand over their affection to the same race that had the audacity to rip families apart.  
  
Some Mer chose to live on land in the hopes that integrating themselves would bring peace, though they didn't form bonds. It didn't bring peace, instead causing children to be stolen away and dooming more and more to a life of pain. The cycle continued for years, as Mer would be born and killed over and over, until one horrible man realized they were more valuable alive.  
  
Mer became pets. Luxuries to the wealthy, and a dream to the rest. Mer that escaped did not live to see the gleam of the ocean. Some were kept for more children, others were slaughtered, and the few that had managed to keep themselves hidden in the sea were forced to witness this throughout the years. Things changed, slowly, being pushed further and further as more things came to light to right the wrongs, and Mer became people the same as humans.  
  
One day, a young man found a ragged and dirty girl on the streets. She watched the world with wary eyes and bared teeth, knowing how easy it was to be hurt. He took her in, let her heal, let her be free in a way that she had never known. They fell in love, and were married, loving each other in a way few people could ever hope for. She asked him, when he fell ill with a sickness none could cure, why he took her in that day. "You longed for the world the same as I have longed for the ocean, my wife. I could not give you the world, but I could give you my love."  
  
He died the day the child was born. Ahn Jaewon was raised by his human mother alone, and she cried when he crawled up to her with fins, soaking wet and babbling.  
  
~  
  
Jaewon met Daehyun when his mother told him to make some friends at seven years old, and he saw a boy sitting on the ground. Daehyun was small, so very small, and the red color of his cut finger made Jaewon's nose crinkle. He didn't like it at all. Not the color, the smell, the tears rolling down Daehyun's chubby cheeks despite how he tried not to cry. Jaewon couldn't heal it, but he wanted to help, so he pressed his lips to Daehyun's little finger, and the boy stopped crying, and peered up at him with big, wide eyes. He didn't know it, but Jaewon had already fallen in love then. Maybe if he had known, he could change everything.  
  
It was supposed to be a one-off circumstance. He didn't see Daehyun anywhere for years afterwards, and his face faded from memory. And then he was fourteen and there was a boy in an alley on the way home, gasping and clutching his side, and Jaewon couldn't just _not_ help, sorry mom.  
  
He stepped closer, and when the blonde looked up at him suddenly Jaewon was seven and in the park again, staring down at the ruddy, wet cheeks of a boy he didn't know would come to ruin his life. He crouched next to Daehyun, worriedly looking at the boy's face and wondering why he didn't seem to recognize him. "Help...." He mumbled before going limp, and Jaewon knew he wouldn't make it if he called an ambulance. He swallowed. He had no knife or weapon, and time was ticking. He bit into the tip of his finger, muffling his pained noise as his mouth filled with blood. He turned Daehyun's head and kissed him, and as the boy begin to stir and his side healed, Jaewon realized what he'd done and couldn't face him, running off just before Daehyun opened his eyes.  
  
They didn't meet again until they found themselves both at High Class Entertainment.  
  
~  
  
Jaewon couldn't tell if Daehyun was incredibly lucky or unlucky with how often he got into trouble. Even though his scandals piled up into double digits, Jaewon still couldn't help but think that Daehyun needed the most help out of the group. He kept an eye on him, and somehow, nothing happened again. Jaewon kept his identity a secret well, and he kept his pain a secret even better. No one was ever the wiser. Including himself. He didn't even know what he had done until they were ready to disband and all anyone could talk about was how Jaewon and Daehyun never seemed to age a day despite all of them being in their thirties. No one thought anything of it, thankfully. Jaewon went to the nursing home to tell his mother, hoping that she might have some advice for him, at least an idea of how to let Daehyun know.  
  
They told him she died in her sleep, painlessly. She _was_ getting older, you know.  
  
MAYHEM all comes to the funeral, and even with his reputation, he gets the most respect from fans he's ever gotten since he was still innocent to them. It hurts, but he expected this. It doesn't dawn on him that Daehyun doesn't.  
  
~  
  
They keep in touch, and in the end, that's what makes it so painful. Over the years, they meet up for coffee, and tea, and to talk. Minsoo gets married, then Dongho, and Daehyun still meets up with them for movie nights, and Dongho has a child, and Jaewon...  
  
He sits alone in the same apartment and wonders if perhaps this is why his mother used to cry on his birthday, though she would never tell him why other than that his father was watching from heaven. Did she know he was destined to end up this way?  
  
He tried dating, both ways, and it still did nothing. He can't stand being alone, but he can't keep people around, and it isn't until Dongho's daughter gets married and and pretends to smooth her father's wrinkles at the reception that Daehyun nudges him and says that maybe it's their turn to settle down and then he _knows._  
  
They keep getting older, and more attention is on the newer bands and they can live in relative peace, but Daehyun still looks twenty-five and Jaewon still looks twenty-six and Minsoo and Dongho both are beginning to turn gray and they keep aging, and there's nothing Jaewon can do because it's only now that he realizes what he's cursed the love of his life to go through, and he doesn't stop crying for a week after.  
  
He knows what he's done, but it doesn't hit anyone else until they have to go to Minsoo's funeral. People murmur and stare and call Jaewon a plastic doll, and wonder how exactly he still looks the same, and then they see Daehyun, and Jaewon doesn't cry this time.  
  
It's only because he's too shocked at how quickly people turn from berating him to Daehyun, and he moves to sit by his side, like his presence will block the words out.  
  
Dongho comes to them after the funeral, wrinkles over his face and hair snow-white in a way that looks wrong, and he congratulates them, mindlessly asking which one of them was a Mer. Jaewon's silence is telling enough, and it's like the spell over Daehyun breaks, and he sees everything for the first time. He looks between Jaewon and Dongho and then runs off to the bathroom, and when he comes back, his eyes are red but there's a fire in them that terrifies Jaewon. Dongho doesn't stay long after Daehyun returns.  
  
"Do you know how many people I had to watch die?! Do you know how many people I've had to say goodbye to?! Minsso-hyung was like family, Jaewon! What did you do to me?" He yells, and Jaewon, wishing more than anything else that he could fix this, only hangs his head. "Make it stop! Take it away!" Daehyun demands, the same handsome face twisted in rage that Jaewon never thought would be directed at him.  
  
With a calmness that surprises himself, Jaewon shakes his head, though he does hope he looks remorseful. "I can't...Immortal is immortal. Unless I'm killed, I can't fix this. I wish I could, Daehyun, I do. I am so, so sorry." H says, and Daehyun stops. Spits on him with a look of disgust that makes ice roll down Jaewon's spine. "I wish I had never met you, Ahn Jaewon. Don't ever talk to me again."  
  
He honors the younger's wish. It's three years that he makes it, before they find him over the side of a cliff the day before his ninety-second birthday, with a note.  
  
They send it to Daehyun. He burns it without reading it.  
  
Daehyun follows him the next day.


End file.
